Therapy Session
by Surelady
Summary: Jareth has tried three times to marry, without success. He schedules a therapy session with none other than his one-time adversary, Sarah Williams, who has grown up to become a trained psychiatrist. But will she like the diagnosis?


**Plot Summary**: Jareth has tried three times to marry, without success. He schedules a therapy session with none other than his one-time adversary, Sarah Williams, who has grown up to become a trained psychiatrist. But will she like the diagnosis?

**Author's Note**: I originally wrote this short piece for the 2013 Labyrinth Fanfic Exchange on Live Journal and, as is rather typical of me, filed it away and forgot all about it. So I thought I would publish it here on this site by way of an apology having been absent so long from writing for this fandom. Rest assured I'm not deceased – and I have other stories to tell (and stories to finish...) if I can ever conquer my terrible writer's block.

As always, many thanks to the ladies of the J/DB Fangirl Harem who are wonderful.

####

"Let's start with intimacy," the young woman begins, pinching the bridge of her nose in resigned acquiescence of the uphill struggle that was doubtless to follow.

"Straight to it then, I see. No need to be coy, my dear. If you would like to know of my sexual appetites, you may simply ask in plain terms."

No, forget the uphill analogy. It was more like a large wall of obnoxious obstinacy. At least with hills, even the steepest ones, some potential measure of progress could be achieved.

"Do you ever feel yourself withholding from your partners?"

"I rather tend not to withhold, and it's landed me in some difficulty on more than one occasion…"

"I don't mean – " the young woman pauses for a moment to collect her temper, "I don't mean sexually withhold yourself, I'm talking about withholding yourself emotionally."

An elegant hand adjusts a gaudy collar; but otherwise no other movement is made.

"A king does not always have the luxury of his private emotions." There was a pretentious tilt to the tone that prevented the statement from gaining the commiseration it had perhaps hoped for.

Maintaining her professionalism, she endeavours to rid her voice of any scathing quality. "So you believe that the nature of your, um, _profession_ prohibits you from expressing yourself?"

"And does not your profession prevent you from saying what you really think, precious?"

"Please don't call me that while we're in session – or ever, for that matter."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Let's just try to keep this about you, ok? It should be pretty easy, given it's your favourite subject..."

"Oh, now I'm certain you're not supposed to be saying things like that. I thought that was the entire basis of _your_ profession – listening to people prattling on endlessly about themselves. Validating their sense of self-importance in an indifferent universe."

"That isn't what this is about. I help people…"

"And it remains to be seen whether or not you can help me." A weighty silence follows that statement and only the gentle ticking of the large clock on the wall fills the space between them.

She takes a deep breath and consults her notes again. They would get nowhere at this rate. Time to throw in a curve ball. "How did you feel when you met your first wife? Alpheia?"

"She wasn't technically my wife. None of them were. That's rather where I've been having the…" he pauses for a moment to search for the right word. "…difficulty. I can find plenty of brides; it's marrying them that appears to be tricky."

"Do you think that there is something significant in the changing of your partner's title from being a bride, which is only really a temporary status, to something more permanent in your life?"

"Why are you asking me? Should you not be providing these answers?"

"I'm just trying to stimulate your thoughts by posing questions."

The resplendent figure leans back a little further in the large sofa, enjoying the creak of his leather against the upholstery. "By all means… you may proceed in stimulating me." His smile is all innocence, daring her to take offence at any implied subtext.

She knows better by now. "Ok, why don't we leave that for the moment and come back to my earlier question. How did you feel when you first met Alpheia?"

He considers for a moment. "That seems a very broad question."

"Yes, it's supposed to be. Just tell me honestly, whatever comes to mind first."

"Very well," he tilts his head back, as though seriously considering his answer. Hope begins to blossom in the young woman's demeanour; maybe after all he really was trying his best to search himself, become more open to self-criticism for his behaviours. "I felt… aroused."

Maybe not.

"That's a chemical reaction, not a feeling."

"You asked me to be truthful," he shrugs.

"Fine, tell me about your first date with Alpheia?"

"My first what?"

"Date – dinner, conversation, some mutually enjoyable entertainment you both took part in?"

"Ah, you mean courtship. The trouble, my dear, is that in my realm courting doesn't take the same form and therefore cannot be judged by the same standards." There was that pretentious tilt to his voice again.

"If you want this session to work, then you'll have to try."

"I can tell you that my first memory of Alpheia was her shining blonde hair, the sweet dimples in her smile, the beautiful lavender dress she wore, and how much satisfaction I had in ripping it off her…" He rounded off this speech with a whimsical smile. The young woman clears her throat but otherwise refrains from comment. "She had such spectacular eyes. I could lose myself just staring into those wondrous ocean-like depths… It was like a beautiful escape."

"I see," she pauses, making a study of jotting down a few lines in her notes. "Would you say that your feelings for Alpheia were based only in sexual attraction?"

"I just described how lovely her eyes were, that hardly suggests I was only interested in her physically."

"And aren't eyes a physical part of someone? What about her personality? Her interests? Her hopes and dreams? None of those things were attractive?"

"Well, you haven't really given me the opportunity to say much else about her."

"I gave you every opportunity!"

"Now, now, no need to lose your temper… Hardly professional." His smile was enough of a reminder that this wasn't some antagonistic or smart-mouth client; this was a Goblin King with a penchant for playing games – particularly mind-games. Unfortunately for him, Dr. Sarah Williams was brilliant at her job.

She closed her notebook and sat it on the small table to her right. In a calm and collected voice she said, "Alright, I think that concludes our session." As if to reinforce her statement, she rises from her chair and takes a step towards the door of her office.

He pulls a silver fob watch from somewhere within his stylish coat. "I still have forty-three minutes remaining of your time at my disposal. And that's if I choose not to re-order it for my own personal benefit."

"It's my prerogative to end the session at any time should I feel it necessary. In the case of any other client, I would simply refund a portion of the money they had paid for my time. But since I'm doing this on my own free time…"

"How you do love to bring up this issue of monetary compensation. You'll recall that I did offer you one of your dreams as recompense, no strings attached."

"There's always strings attached where you're involved."

The genuine grin of pleasure that splits his countenance throws into sharp relief the lines under his eyes that she hadn't noticed before now. "I do enjoy your company, Sarah. Why not stay and finish the session, as we agreed. I promise to behave."

"You promised that at the beginning. Several times in fact. I just don't think you're getting anything useful from this."

"Besides your scintillating company?"

She carefully affects an expression of solemn concern. "In my professional opinion, you haven't fully accepted that you have an issue that needs to be addressed, so my ability to really help you is limited."

"And is not my very presence here an indication of that acceptance?" he counters, beginning to lose his measured tone.

With an apparently defeated sigh, she turns from him and begins to move towards the door. "I'll have Lauren dig out some reading material you might find useful, it should only take a few moments and then you can be on your way."

"Sarah…"

She determinedly keeps moving towards the door as though she doesn't hear him.

"Sarah." Speaking her name like a command.

Still she doesn't look back.

"I lied."

That admission forces her to halt.

"Alpheia never left me right before the wedding. I wasn't completely truthful during our initial, ah, negotiations… or I should say, I allowed you to assume some things without clarifying certain details. Alpheia arrived at the ceremony, dressed in the beautiful lavender gown she wore when first we met, at my request. And I'm told she waited there by that alter like a beautiful statue – poised and dignified like the queen she should have been."

She turns towards him again, a silent encouragement that he should continue.

"But her king was never to attend the ceremony, despite waiting for him nearly all day." There is nothing in his face that suggests remorse; only a quiet sort of curiosity at the peculiarities of people's behaviours.

Dr. Williams uses the slight break to resume her chair once more and silently reach for her written notes.

"I had been… delayed, as it were, with a runner in my Labyrinth. Once I had concluded my business with that, I returned to Alpheia's side. I tried to explain to her that I could not ignore my duties as the Goblin King; once I am called upon, I have no choice but to appear to the wisher."

"And is that true?" she quietly asks after a pause, "Do you really have no choice?"

He lets a weighty moment of silence be the only response to that particular question. "Cassandra was a different case; my second almost-wife. She took the opportunity to leave before the ceremony. She claimed that I lost interest in her – become distracted."

"When you think back on your time with her, would you say on reflection that she was right?"

The great king of the Labyrinth absent-mindedly bites his lower lip as he ponders a reply, and in that one moment he has never appeared more human to her. "It is not my custom to think about these things retrospectively… But the sheer dearth of pleasurable memories of Casandra around the time of our engagement must be telling in itself."

"How did you meet Casandra?"

"I introduced myself to her at some ridiculous banquet or other. It had been a long time since I attended one of those events… I remember that she stood out to me immediately in amongst the usual faces. She was quite a captivating beauty… hair like – " he abruptly stops and holds himself perfectly still in thought, then all at once seems to recover. "Though, as you've pointed out, those physical aspects are perhaps of little interest." Again, his elegant hand makes an adjustment to his collar.

"Tell me about your third bride – Marianne?"

"Ah, Marianne… Well, as it happens, I met her on the night she wished away her little brother."

"Wait – what?"

"Now I realise this will be hard for you to imagine, my dear; but some people wish away their siblings. Particularly the younger siblings, since often the wisher is the first child in the family and consequently is more likely to suffer under the misconception that their parents perhaps don't have enough love to share out equally amongst their children." A sudden pleased smile flashes across his face. "Hmm, this phycology discipline is surprisingly easy."

She doesn't fail to detect the smugness in his tone. "You never said your third would-be wife was mortal."

"Oh did I not?"

"No. No, you did not."

"Ah. Well, I thought I had. Slight oversight there."

For a moment neither of them say anything. They sit together in that small office staring at each other; the Goblin King, with his hands steepled in an elegant and relaxed manner; and the therapist, gripping her pen in a strange way.

"Is there a problem with that?" he asks.

"No. No, it's just… I wasn't expecting it, that's all." She loosens her grip on the pen and begins to tap it against her notepad. His eyes glance down once to note the action, but otherwise he exhibits no apparent reaction to her behaviour.

There is another pause, and the minutes seem to reverberate in the air between them.

"Shall I continue then?"

"Of course. In your own time, Goblin King."

"Do you have… any questions for me regarding Marianne?"

She shakes her head, biting her lip. "Nope. No, just tell me about her. Whatever comes to mind."

"She pleaded with me beautifully. And though I offered Marianne her dreams in exchange for giving up the child, as I have done on many occasions prior, she refused in such a way that very few would do. She said to me – 'what good are dreams to anyone at the cost of love? I now know what love is; and dreams are a poor substitute.' I was instantly enraptured."

She busies herself with writing in her note book and avoids the look in his eyes. "And I suppose she was the one that backed out of the wedding, am I right?"

"She was not my bride for long," was his only reply. She understood his cryptic turns of phrase enough to know when the well of free-flowing information had suddenly gone dry.

"Ok. Well, this was a very good session. Very productive…"

"Yes. I believe it is now customary to agree a date and time for the next session?"

She blinked at him as though she had momentarily forgotten where she was or the purpose of the conversation. "Uh yea, that's right. Lauren can sort something out in my diary."

It seems but a few short moments later that he blinks out of being, and Sarah is left alone in her office with some scribbled notes and her thoughts.

####

A few nights later found Sarah curled up on the couch with the TV on and her scribbled notes spread out in front of her. It wasn't often that she would take work home with her; yet this didn't quite feel like work in some way. Hardly listening to the yammering of the people on the screen, she reaches for her cup of hot chocolate and holds it between her two hands. She doesn't take a sip from the mug; just enjoys the soothing warmth as she allows her thoughts to drift somewhere else.

Suddenly, there is a tapping at the window.

It takes a moment to register that the taps are too deliberate to be merely a branch hitting the pane. Climbing out of her comfy corner, she makes her way towards the window and is greeted with the face of a barn owl looking at her expectantly.

Releasing a sigh, she unhooks the latch and allows the bird to fly into the room. A moment later, an elegant king is dusting off his tailored sleeve in the middle of her living room.

"What are you doing here?"

"Is it not the 13th of Tuesday?"

"You mean Tuesday the 13th – and no, it's only Friday the 8th. You're too early for your appointment."

"My mistake then. But as I'm here," he investigates the room, eventually deciding that the armchair was a worthy enough seat for a king, "perhaps we should simply take advantage of the time and proceed." His long leg naturally swings over the left armrest as he makes himself comfortable, clearly intending to stay for awhile.

"This isn't a drop-in service. You can't just pop by for a session whenever you want, I explained this to you at the beginning."

"Yes I recall that you did. But I fail to understand why everything must be planned in advance. Life should be more spontaneous than that."

"Well, not all of us can be born into royalty and do whatever we like… and apparently date whoever we want." She grumbled that last part, and marched towards the little open plan kitchen. If she was expected to deal with fairy kings just showing up in her home then she needed a cookie with her hot chocolate.

"I sense you are agitated."

She lets out a bark of laughter. "Oh really? I wonder why that might be? It couldn't have anything to do with annoying men dropping in on me and expecting me to help them with their problems!" Banging open one of the cupboards, which she was sure must contain at least some cookies, she hears herself groan in frustration. "I don't know what I was thinking…"

All of a sudden she feels a presence immediately behind her.

"Why _did_ you agree to have me as your patient?"

She whirls around to lock eyes with him, and tries to resist the urge to retreat a step backwards. "I'm a sucker for lost causes," is her sardonic reply.

He moves only a fraction, but he's suddenly much closer than before. "And am I a lost cause, Dr. Williams?"

The earnestness of his question, so quietly put, and the look in his strange eyes makes something behind her heart twist. "I – I don't know…" She really couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Your notes made for interesting reading…" he glances behind him, indicating the strewn bits of paper across her coffee table.

Sarah's stomach does an uncomfortable somersault as the implications of what he's just said registers in her brain. "You can't have read all of them… There's no way! I left you alone for two seconds!"

"I'm a Goblin King," he smirks, as if this explains everything.

She brushes past him and heads immediately for her notes to start gathering them up.

"Most of it is gibberish, of course," he comments pleasantly, following her out of the kitchen. "However, I think my favourite part is where you wrote:" here he recites from a piece of paper he's apparently stolen from the collection, "'Patient suffers from extreme narcissism, which has created in the subject's mind an aggrandised view of himself which does not reflect reality and is continually undermined by disappointment. Patient is emotionally incapable of dealing with disillusionment and therefore fails to recognise clear symptoms of depression and demoralised confidence – which inevitably leads to further disappointment. Patient has tendency for self-destructiveness.' Really, Sarah." He tsks as though scolding a child. "That last part isn't even good grammar."

"Hey, which one of us is the professional, huh? That's my assessment, ok? Deal with it." She folds her arms to reinforce this point.

"Like most intellectuals, you've put far too much thought into it. Leaving aside the fact that this assessment, as you call it, is evidently more about yourself than about me – "

"What?! How on earth is it about – "

"Oh come on, 'disappointment', 'depression', 'disillusionment'? All these words fit you perfectly."

"What about 'extreme narcissism'?"

He pauses, considering this for a moment. "I admit, that could be either of us."

"You are unbelievable."

"Yes I know," he smiles, "but let us get back to the main point – your assessment, though very apt for yourself, in respect to me utterly fails to recognise a much simpler explanation."

"Which you're about to tell me, I suppose, now that you're a trained therapist all of a sudden."

"It's wonderful, actually. The problem was never me, you see. The problem is, and always has been, you."

She gapes at that, almost speechless. "How could _any_ of this possibly be my fault?!"

"Don't you see? Although, I only did realise it myself for the first time a few days ago during our session. It all fits together like a beautiful, terrible jigsaw puzzle."

"Well it must be missing several pieces because I still don't get it."

"The runner in my Labyrinth that kept me from Alpheia's side as she waited patiently at the altar, who do you think that runner was Sarah?"

It clicks just like that – a movement in her mind that shifts obstructions to allow for a clear and undeniable trajectory of thought.

"What about Cassandra? A woman who stood out amongst a crowd of faceless people? I realise now, and can barely understand how I didn't see it then – she looked so much like you. A raven haired temptress with a smile a man might kill for. But that was all there was to her, unfortunately. Which explains why I ultimately lost interest."

She feels a desperate desire to retreat from the magnitude of his words, yet knows for certain she doesn't want to run away. She unconsciously takes small steps backwards, though it hardly seems to put any amount of distance between them.

"And Marianne… enchanting and wonderful Marianne. More than anyone else, she understood. Despite all that I did for her, she told me that I could never be her slave. I understand now what she meant."

"But this is crazy. You can't really be saying that… What _are_ you trying to say?"

For perhaps the first time since she's known him, his smile reaches his eyes. "I'm saying, Dr. Williams, that I've found the cure to my ailment. And I will not be requiring your professional services anymore."

The clamouring of her heart is not a dose of blind panic, she realises, but the symptoms of inexplicable and unexpected happiness.

"So… I can cancel your appointment for next week?" her smile is teasing in a way that is new and very exciting.

The grin he answers her with is pure wickedness. "My precious girl, you may need to cancel _all_ your appointments."

"Oh? Am I going somewhere?"

"You most certainly are, if I have anything to say about it. And you should know, I am a king."

"I don't think I could forget that even if I tried."

No longer able to have her any further away from him than necessary, he pulls the young woman into his arms. Their embrace is so sudden, and yet so timely, that it leaves them both breathless with amazement.

Between the sweetly short first kisses, she suddenly breaks away. "Why me?"

There is such vulnerability in those two little words that at another time the Goblin King might have exploited them for his own gain. Instead, he tells her the truth. And it's exactly what she needs to hear.

"I don't know," he smiles. "It's just how it is."

####

The following Monday morning Lauren logs into her computer at work. She is astonished to find that, not only has Dr. Williams' appointment with Jareth King been removed from the calendar, all her other appointments have vanished too.

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AN: Please leave a wee review if you are so inclined :)


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